[WP8.1]Windows Phone Developer Registration (8.1): Unable to connect to a phone

Question

Any time I try to registrate my phone for development via PhoneReg.exe tool I get a message: "Unable to connect to a phone. Make sure that the Windows Phone IP over USB Transport (IpOverUsbSvc) service is running."

My setup is:

- PC: ASUS K53SV, Windows 10 Pro, Visual Studio 2015 (Community edition) with Windows Phone SDK 8.1, connected to internet via WiFi

- Phone: Lumia 640 LTE, Windows Phone 8.1 Update 2, connected to PC via USB cable, connected to internet via WiFi

I tried the following, but allways got the same "Unable to connect.." message:

- Unlocked the phone screen

- Checked the phone time and date is correct and switched off automatic time and date update

- Checked the phone is visible in my PC -> in file explorer I can see the phone storage content

- Reinstalled phone into factory default

- Unplugged the USB cable and got the same error message again -> huh!

- Stopped almost all running processes in my PC in order to avoid using system resources, that could theoretically be used by PhoneReg.exe tool

- Tried another USB connector on PC

- Restarted phone

- Restarted PC

I did not try to registrate my phone on another PC, since installing 15 GB visual studio takes huge time. If nobody has an advice for me, I will try it this weekend.

Questions:

1. I do not need to registrate a (paid) developer account for me if I want to use only one phone for development, right? Anyway I think it has nothing to do with "Unable to connect.." error.

2. Could it be, that some Windows 10 settings affects PhoneReg.exe tool functionality? E.g. if I disable to use advertising ID, then PhoneReg tool is "Unable to connect.." ?

3. Any other ideas what to check, try, change,... ?

Thanks!

Answer 1

Hi Jan Sebesta,

Welcome to the Developing Universal Windows apps forum!

Please read the sticky posts, especially the Guide to posting: subject line tags and Known Issues for Windows 10 SDK and Tools

>>1. I do not need to registrate a (paid) developer account for me if I want to use only one phone for development, right? Anyway I think it has nothing to do with "Unable to connect.." error.

Yes, you are right, we do not need to register a paid developer account.

>>2. Could it be, that some Windows 10 settings affects PhoneReg.exe tool functionality? E.g. if I disable to use advertising ID, then PhoneReg tool is "Unable to connect.." ?

Yes, maybe you have installed some software or settings that affects registration. But I can successfully register a Windows Phone 8.1 app on the Windows 10 PC.

>>3. Any other ideas what to check, try, change,... ?
Since the error is about "Unable to connect to a phone. Make sure that the Windows Phone IP over USB Transport (IpOverUsbSvc) service is running", please make sure that the Windows Phone IP Over USB Transport(IpOverUsbSvc) service is running as following:

For more information, please try to refer to the following article about how to trobleshoot it:
https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windows/apps/Ff769508(v=VS.105).aspx .

Best Regards,
Amy Peng

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Answer 2

Hi Amy Peng,

Thank you very much for the answers and interest in helping me.

Sorry, I forgotten to mention, that I also checked that "IpOverUsbSvc" service is running and I also tried to restart the service as you suggested. But still not succeeded.

Here I list what I am going to check next day:

- Go through Windows system log and try find some logged error, that could be related to my problem

- Try another USB cable (but I dont give it much chance)

- Try to register on another PC

I am not going to try changing Windows 10 settings on my PC, since I dont know where to start.

Anyway, I will appreciate more ideas.

Best Regards,

Jan

Answer 3

I resolved the issue.

I did following steps:

1. I installed Visual Studio 2015 + Windows Phone 8.1 SDK on another PC and succesfully registered the phone there.

2. I tried to run Windows Phone registration tool back on my PC and still was getting "Unable to connect..." message

3. On my PC I reinstalled Windows 10 from scratch and then immediatelly installed Visual Studio 2015 + Windows Phone 8.1 SDK

4. On my PC I tried to run Windows Phone registration tool and wow - now the phone was successfuly detected

Since I did a complete reinstallation, I can only provide following suggestions what was the reason for "Unable to connect.." failure:

• I installed some ASUS drivers (for Windows 7) after Windows 10 was installed. It could be, that there was some hidden problem/conflict in the Windows 10 OS, that prevented registration tool from detecting the phone. Especially I had some troubles with USB drivers. E.g. sometimes my USB mouse was not working and I had to restart USB driver marked with exclamation mark in device manager.
• It could be, that maybe too restrictive Windows 10 settings was the reason why registration tool did not detected the phone. E.g. in the Windows 10 settings I noticed the item privacy->next devices and maybe there was somehow disabled full access to my phone. But I cannot tell more, I just kept there default settings after Windows reinstalation.

Answer 4

Hi Jan Sebesta,

Well Done!

Thank you very much for sharing the solution to us. :)

Best Regards,
Amy Peng

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